Back in the twilight days of Mark Richt’s Georgia tenure, I took a lot of grief in certain quarters here for suggesting that the enthusiasm of some for firing Richt ought to be tempered by the realization that even were the head coach to be removed, the rest of the athletic department would still be in place, meaning that the problems facing Georgia football were more than just Mark Richt’s management. I don’t think subsequent developments have rebutted my argument.

It’s probably a wise lesson to be applied today, as I hear much the same from a lot of people about Greg McGarity. While I’m obviously no fan of his management, once again it’s hard for me to see how his departure would change things much. Doubt me on that? Well, let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. It’s something that Seth Emerson mentioned yesterday, but Jason Butt spells it out in a little more detail here:

Much has been discussed about the large amount of money sitting in Georgia’s operating reserves. The worry is that millions of dollars that could be used toward athletics facility upgrades is going to waste.

During Thursday’s annual spring UGA Athletic Association Board of Directors meeting at the King and Prince Golf and Beach Resort, the topic was broached during an hour-long presentation. In essence, Georgia preached a fiscally responsible approach to its spending. The money in the operating reserves has multiple purposes, such as maintaining projects, being prepared for unforeseen events and to maintain good standing with lenders.

But one point the UGA Athletic Association hadn’t made clear before is what some of the money is actually tied to. On Thursday, Georgia reported an uncommitted balance of $36.9 million in its operating reserve. But that money can’t simply go toward new facilities at a rapid pace without facing financial consequences.

UGA vice president of finance and administration Ryan Nesbit said that a portion of the $36.9 million in its operating reserves is tied to bond-related covenants related to other projects. While the Georgia athletics program is able to take some money out, it won’t allow the reserve to drop below $30 million. UGA must uphold previous bond agreements that state a specific amount of untouched cash is available without use. [Emphasis added.]

That’s a lot of money to be sitting there. And while McGarity may be tasked with defending that proposition,

The Athletic Association reported an Aa3 credit rating provided to it by Moody’s, which is the lowest level of the credit rating agency’s “high grade” description. This has led to favorable bond and interest rates, the ability for future re-financings and the possibility of obtaining a low-interest line of credit for the West end zone project.

But the Aa3 rating is only one notch away from an A1 designation, which is considered “upper medium grade.” Nesbit said Georgia wants to avoid dropping into this category.

Georgia athletics director Greg McGarity stated other collegiate programs are willing to take on additional debt without the means of replacing it in a sound manner.

“That is the situation a lot of institutions are in now,” McGarity said. “Their reserves have either been depleted or their debt services are so high that future occupants of an athletic director’s chair is going to make it tough 20-to-30 years out. I think it’s a story that’s not very popular in college athletics.”

… I have a hard time believing that’s his call to make in the first place.

During the board meeting, UGA president Jere Morehead expressed the need for the program’s donors to come through with the $53 million for the project. If Georgia has to dip into its reserves for it, the bond-related covenants and credit rating could be affected.

Let me say, before anyone tries to lob a stupid accusation my way, that it’s entirely admirable for Georgia’s athletic department to behave in a fiscally prudent manner. You read stories about the out of control finances at schools like Cal and realize bad management can easily lead to awful problems.

However, frugality is only a means, not an end in itself. The end, need I remind you, is putting competitive sports programs on the field. Banking money isn’t winning; it’s banking money. It’s questionable if McGarity’s bosses recognize the difference.

While Georgia claims it is more financially stable than its counterparts, it still remains to be seen whether this will translate into winning. Georgia’s athletics programs had one of its worst runs in quite a while during the 2016-17 season.

… It’s hard not to notice that the losses that have piled up play a part in the notion that the athletics department isn’t spending money on upgrading facilities at a fast rate. And until the wins start adding up, fans will be wondering what more can be done to fix the situation Georgia athletics has found itself in.

“I know our program is not reaching its full potential,” McGarity said.

The new spending initiative the UGA Athletic Board passed allows for athletics to spend four percent yearly of a reserve fund currently set aside in a bank account. Its about another million dollars a year, which will ultimately get swallowed up in the $127 million budget the board passed Thursday.

To be sure, the spending measure is a new thing. UGA president Jere Morehead told reporters after the meeting concluded that only now did UGA feel comfortable enough financially to start the new spending from their rainy-day funds.

“It finally reached a level where we felt comfortable that we could start pulling from it,” he said. “We need to tap into it because revenue is not growing as rapidly as expenses in this intercollegiate athletic environment that we’re in today. We’re looking for new sources of revenue.”

Ryan Nesbit, Vice President for Finance and Administration at UGA, gave a nearly one-hour presentation attempting to explain Georgia’s position as it relates to bond covenants (which is just an agreement about how much money UGA must show each month in its accounts in order to comply with the financing provided by the bonds), reserve accounts and how all those millions of dollars work (or don’t work as some would argue) at UGA.

The morning meeting was a stark reminder that at Georgia few things are an irritant more than money. The perception of having too much of it, and not spending it to win has a dragging effect of those leading the institution. Money is something the higher ups keep a keen eye on, and its something fans (and some inside of the athletic department) use as a constant was to criticize those in charge.

At no point did any leader in the room give more than a passing comment on why UGA is struggling so much in the field of play…

(As an aside, with all the money rolling into the athletic department, note that it still feels the need to collect $3.24 million in student fees this coming fiscal year. Were I a student, or a parent paying the bill, I would be infuriated by that.)

I am not an accountant, nor do I play one on TV. I’m also not a college sports administrator. What I can’t help but wonder, though, purely as a dumbass fan on the outside looking in, is how programs like Alabama and Ohio State manage to succeed without maintaining enormous reserve accounts. Morehead and McGarity are clearly versed in certain college athletic departments’ financial train wrecks. Have they bothered to inquire into how the winners have managed to stay afloat? Are there no positive lessons to be learned from the way those programs are run? More relevantly, if there are, would anyone calling the shots at Butts-Mehre care?

UPDATE: One more example of what I’m referring to in this post can be found in Emerson’s piece today about Georgia’s master plan (or lack thereof).

Georgia’s football team has one of the smallest weight rooms in the SEC. Bulldog football players also don’t have easy parking, so star players move around campus on scooters.

All the while, the program’s rivals, which had indoor facility and new locker rooms well before Georgia, are continuing to add their own projects. It’s the facilities arms race.

UGA has dipped its toe into it, with the indoor facility ($30.2 million) opening earlier this year, and construction on the Sanford Stadium west end zone project ($63 million for new locker rooms and a recruiting area) beginning this summer.

For now, that will be it. When asked to pinpoint any future projects, McGarity declined to pinpoint anything.

“Oh, we are totally focused on the west end. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, all our efforts are west end,” McGarity said. “We’ll talk about that when the west end zone is well underway.”

You can’t think forward about projects when you’re bound by a mindset of pay as you go. Not to mention that when you’re behind in the race from the start, it’s a strategy that’s doomed to keep you there permanently.

This is just brutal… and the worst part is that it seems to keep going and going.

Do not despair, though.

“The responsibility to enhance our strengths and address our weaknesses lands on my desk,” McGarity told the gathering. “I know our program is not reaching its full potential. Our staff spends every day committed to moving our program forward, both collectively and sport by sport, and when we fall short of expectations, we are there to provide support, and when we win, we celebrate alongside each sport.

“Regardless of the outcome, we remain loyal and dedicated to fully supporting our student-athletes and our coaches…”

For years, the NCAA didn’t want to wade into the murky waters of determining what is or isn’t academically sound. It left such determinations up to accrediting agencies. (It should be noted that in this case, North Carolina was placed on probation for a year by its accrediting agency.) This is why the NCAA did nothing about Tennessee’s Chair Stacking 101 classes in the late 1990s or Auburn’s directed reading classes in the early 2000s. Every large university has easy classes available to everyone, and most major athletic departments cluster revenue-sport athletes into easy majors. These cases were ignored for a reasons: The NCAA didn’t have clear rules in place to enforce them. In fact, if North Carolina’s attorneys really want to twist the knife during the COI hearing, they’ll quote what attorneys representing the NCAA wrote in a 2015 response to a lawsuit brought by former North Carolina athletes regarding the quality of the education they received. According to that response, the NCAA has no legal responsibility “to ensure the academic integrity of the courses offered to student-athletes at its member institutions.”

Which is why Stacey Osburn may be the smartest person working at the NCAA.

As cynical as I am about the need for a campus carry law, I have to admit I never thought of this scenario.

There are still uncertainties with the law such as if guns would be permitted inside the football locker room in the Butts-Mehre building.

“I haven’t had that question answered yet so I wouldn’t want to speak for our system or general counsel,” UGA president Jere Morehead said Thursday after the Athletic Association’s spring meeting. “I can’t imagine why that would be.”

Added athletic director Greg McGarity: “We have to define in our building what areas are or are not. We’re not there yet.”

For once, I can appreciate his reluctance. But, even given the world we live in, it’s hard to think of going from Richt dismissing Isaiah Crowell over a (later dismissed) gun charge to not being able to do a damned thing about players carrying in a locker room without shaking one’s head.

Midway through a nine-month probe into Baylor University’s institutional response to sexual violence, the investigating law firm and the university revised their legal relationship to, in anticipation of litigation, conceal the investigation’s most damning findings, documents filed in a Title IX lawsuit initiated by 10 alleged sexual assault victims state.

Communications between high-ranking Baylor officials and a Pepper Hamilton LLP attorney reflect the shift in relationship to establish attorney-client privilege around the investigation…

Even Penn State didn’t pull that stunt.

It’s crap like this that reinforces for me the uselessness of insisting that it’s up to the NCAA to do something about Baylor. Put aside for the moment that this really isn’t a situation where the NCAA has any real authority to take action. The reality is that Baylor has already cleaned house on the athletics side, with both the coaches and the athletic director dismissed, so even if the NCAA had any sort of mandate, all it would be doing is punishing people who had nothing to do with the problem.

What’s left to be addressed, then, is how the school’s administration enabled the entire corrupt enterprise by turning a blind eye to it as long as it could, partially because it was inadequately structured to deal with the problem, partially because key players were more than willing to turn a blind eye because Briles’ program was winning games. The institution needs to pay a severe price for that.

The only way schools are going to learn that there’s a substantial risk in not monitoring athletics responsibly is if they get nuked, financially speaking. And, like it or not, that’s only going to happen through litigation.

The university has argued that the claims of the alleged victims are vague, uninformed or untrue. It has also argued in a filing that some of the women have declined to sign authorizations enabling Baylor to review counseling and health records…

The plaintiffs’ motion also alleges former Baylor board Chairman Neal “Buddy” Jones, who left the board in 2013, possesses student email accounts, medical records and other relevant documents. Jones, who was subpoenaed by Dunnam, has not turned over documents because Baylor has not authorized him to do so, according to the filing.

“There is simply no basis by which Baylor can argue that plaintiffs are not entitled to plaintiffs’ own records and information,” the motion states.

That should be especially so when the institution hasn’t shown a shred of remorse to the victims.

Jay Jacobs says Pat Dye’s suggestion that Auburn should move to the SEC East “makes sense”.

Such a move would create a serious logistical problem (Alabama would have to give up one of its traditional rivalry games, and you know which one Jacobs would prefer to see ‘Bama vacate), but when I consider the amount of shit that would rain down on the program for making a gutless move like that, it’s almost worth letting Auburn do it.

Quote Of The Day

“Give them credit, but I think everybody can see that Georgia’s going to be a force to be reckoned with. I’m very proud of this team and this university, and we’re not going anywhere.’ — Kirby Smart, AJ-C, 1/9/18